Manhattan judges overturned the convictions Monday of two men who spent decades in prison for separate killings investigated by detectives in the same NYPD precinct in Harlem.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office agreed to drop the cases against Wayne Gardine, convicted of a 1994 fatal shooting in Harlem, and Jabar Walker, convicted of a 1998 double homicide, after re-investigating the two cases in partnership with defense attorneys from the Legal Aid Society and the Innocence Project. The men served a combined 54 years for crimes prosecutors now say they’re not convinced they committed.
“There’s a big problem among police and prosecutors and the system where nobody cares about the truth,” said Vanessa Potkin, Walker’s attorney and director of special litigation for the Innocence Project. “And once you’re convicted, people just fight to uphold the conviction.”
Gardine and Walker’s convictions were both overturned in part because prosecutors determined they did not believe witness accounts.
In Gardine’s case, one witness said he made up a story because he felt pressured by his boss, who was friends with the victim, according to his lawyers. In Walker’s case, a witness who testified that he heard Walker confess to the murders later recanted, saying he had been pressured by police officers, according to a filing by prosecutors.
The cases highlighted the consequences of corruption in the 1990s at 30th Precinct station house in Harlem, which was nicknamed the “Dirty 30.”
Gardine’s case was overseen by a detective at the precinct who was later convicted of drug trafficking conspiracy and served eight years in prison, according to the Legal Aid Society.
A mayoral commission tasked with investigating police corruption in the 1990s found officers in the precinct regularly conducted illegal searches and stole money and drugs, among other wrongdoing. Dozens of police were arrested.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg launched a Post-Conviction…
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